Process Shot of the Week

I finished my Brooch A Day Challenge yesterday. I'm pretty proud of myself for actually managing to make a brooch (or 2) everyday for 30 days, but I'm not sure what I managed to prove. I did try a lot of things, and I had to get creative on the days I was away from my studio. I don't think any one thing inspired me enough to send my work in a new direction, but I'm trying not to over thinking. I guess I feel like my creative muscles have atrophied a bit, and I've got to work my way back up to the sort of heavy conceptual lifting I was doing at the end of my thesis.

Here's a shot of all 30+ brooches minus #29 which I think I left at work and #30, which hadn't been completed at the time I took this photo. I posted a photo of each brooch to Instagram as it was completed. It was interesting to see which brooches garnered the most "likes". The winner was the over fired white oval brooch with french knots, The scribble enamel pieces with the wire stick pins were also well received, as well as the paper pieces from last weekend, much to my surprise. Perhaps they appealed to the print community as well? Perhaps I just got more spam last weekend. If anything, Instagram served as a reminder that my enamels will always be more successful than my metalsmithing.
Below are the the three brooches I feel are the most successful of the bunch.

In other studio news, we hosted traveling artist and rad nomad Casey Sheppard at the center this week (more on that later). Later, I was able to make some progress on my reliquaries. I'm still totally intimidated by this project, but I have to make something, and I feel moved to make these pieces. I have multiple pieces of the things I'm putting in the reliquaries, so I can always make more later. I'm starting with the echinoderms; the sand dollar box and the sea urchin box. I'm hoping to get the sides of the sand dollar box soldered together this week. I'm also working on designs for the top of the sea urchin box.

So stayed tuned. The challenge for the next 30 days is to make an earring a day, hopefully ending up with 15 asymmetrical pairs of earrings at the end of the month. I think maybe that I would get more out of sticking with the same format, but right now it's all about maintaining a steady practice of making. The heavy lifting can come later.

Happy weekend.